Today, I entered a painting I'd worked on for weeks into an art competition. I won nothing. I wouldn't care so much if the guy I lost out to hadn't submitted a blank canvas and called it a "conceptual piece". FML

Hey, OP here. I just thought that you guys might be interested in knowing that the contest was actually rigged. One of the judges and the winner were in cahoots, and they halved the prize money. They were found out and had to return the money. I still wasn't ranked high enough to win though, but at least now I lost to someone who submitted actual art.

Visual art is no longer about the ability to paint, an eye for proportions and composition or the like, it's about writing the story that sells the piece to the critics.
Consequently, inventive authors that can't draw shit have a greater chance at winning an art competition than any immensely talented painters.

Art confuses the art "experts", also.
They don't know what's going on, but don't want to look the fool in front of the other people that don't know what's going on. So, they all nod their heads and pretend.

Sounds like modern art. If you entered a modern art contest that's your own fault bro if Vincent Van Gogh wiped his paintbrush off with a paper towel, called it a masterpiece of nature and sold it, it would go for 1mil dollars hands down. But if not then idk that blows either way